It appears in the slack time sawing a colony of Yellow Jackets has taken up residence in the sawdust under the mill. I thought it was wasps at first. I started spraying Wasp and Hornet killer it the holes in the frame as usual. The durn things just kept getting thicker. What can I put in there to kill them. I don't want to use Gas or Diesel, afraid it will start a reaction and start a fire. Anybody got any ideas?
That wasp and hornet killer should work if you close up the hole after you spray a good bit in there. Best time is when it's pretty close to dark so they're all home for the evening. They must be in a hole under the sawdust. The sawdust makes it more complicated than the usual nests I deal with. Now that you've got 'em riled up, it adds another wrinkle. I'm sure there'll be some more wisdom coming in soon. Good Luck. I hate yellowjackets.
Have been told that yellow jackets cannot fly in rain, and have seen a couple instances since I heard this that make me believe it. Guy that told me about it suggests a hose on a fine mist setting as a "shield" when working on a nest.
That said, last nest I took care of, I used a full can of foaming wasp and hornet killer after dark and it seemed to do the trick for me.
A good pyrethrin contact pesticide, mixed with water, will knock them down. I use fly spray for cattle from the COOP. Mix it in a pump lawn and garden sprayer, with water, and hose them. They do not react as aggressively to being sprayed with this, I guess thinking its rain. I keep a jug sprayer mixed up at all times, better and cheaper than the canned spray.
When one comes at you, put up a wall of mist and they can't make it through without losing their fight.
I like to hit them at dusk, to catch them all at the nest. Hit them like with a firehouse, then jab the sprayer in to the hole with the trigger pulled and come back later. Or just spray them in the air.
You need a skunk or coon to go in there and eat the yellow jackets.
My cousin had a interesting solution. He would put shop vac hose next to main entrace to nest, about 45 min or so and all the jackets are in the vac canister to be drowned if a wet/dry model, or just corked up to die in a day or two.
Seemed to work. Nest can be dug up once the live jackets are gone.
Fish love em as bait.
I had to deal with a nest just two weeks ago Suckers started building a nest in a stack of lumber. I threw a tarp over the stack and took two of those roach bomb fogger. Killed them all in no time. ;D
I dump strati gas on them. I don't light it. The fumes alone will kill them.
For ground bees,wasps I use powdered Seven insecticide.
Evening cool pour into entrance of nest. Leave small amount
outside of entrance. When they fly in and out they carry poison
to the entire nest. Takes 24 hrs. to work.
Need 10 o/o powdered Seven.
They say DAWN dish soap mixed with water will knock them down
as good as anything. Mix and put in garden sprayer,now I have never used this mix but will in future have always used break cleaner but
probably not good in sawdust.
W.C.W
I vote for using a permethrin spray. It will not only kill them it will drive any other wasp away. They hate the smell of it. I had a nest of yellow jackets in my sailboat a few years ago opened the hatch gave a 10 second spray they were dead the next day. I have not seen a wasp around the boat scince.
firehose, lotsa pressure.
I have also used Anchorseal, in a sprayer....it just kind of glues them up....and they won't end check anymore.
I use the cheapest liquid laundry detergent I can find and mix it with water in a 30 gallon sprayer that I carry around on the back of the Kabota RTV. This stuff works on yellowjackets, red and black wasps and almost anything that flies and stings. It goes a lot further than the wasp and hornet spray cans...lasts a lot longer......and is super cheap. And if you get the perfumed kind of detergent every place you spray will smell really, really nice.
Quote from: YellowHammer on July 24, 2017, 10:23:21 PM
I have also used Anchorseal, in a sprayer....it just kind of glues them up....and they won't end check anymore.
Was this one of those desperate times call for desperate measures type of moments? :D :D
One gallon of Dawn applied with a garden fertilize sprayer, the kind that attaches to a garden hose. Final score. Yellow Jackets-7, Bill-hundreds.
Probably would not work for the in-ground application but the last I had was a football shaped nest 8-9 inches long in my wood storage shed that a customer noted. I was out of spray so came back at night, tied an old newspaper to a long strip and lit it. Plenty of flame and I singed the wings off as soon as they came out. You need plenty of flame more than the heat.
The little white grubs are tender but make good bream bait but don't forget and leave the nest laying around or some will hatch and the adults are not very forgiving.
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on July 25, 2017, 08:52:25 AM
Probably would not work for the in-ground application but the last I had was a football shaped nest 8-9 inches long in my wood storage shed that a customer noted. I was out of spray so came back at night, tied an old newspaper to a long strip and lit it. Plenty of flame and I singed the wings off as soon as they came out. You need plenty of flame more than the heat.
The little white grubs are tender but make good bream bait but don't forget and leave the nest laying around or some will hatch and the adults are not very forgiving.
I only tried fire one time. When I caught my dads Christmas tree field on fire that was the end of that.
Try putting a fire out when you got the bees mad...
Quote from: Kbeitz on July 24, 2017, 06:48:18 PM
I dump strati gas on them. I don't light it. The fumes alone will kill them.
What is strati gas?
We used to knock them out with ether or WD40 on the farm. I supposed diesel and kerosene would work too.
Quote from: Ox on July 25, 2017, 10:24:49 AM
Quote from: Kbeitz on July 24, 2017, 06:48:18 PM
I dump strati gas on them. I don't light it. The fumes alone will kill them.
What is strati gas?
We used to knock them out with ether or WD40 on the farm. I supposed diesel and kerosene would work too.
Sorry... Miss spell.... "straight"
Kbeitz,
Did your dad thank you for getting rid of the yellowjackets for him?
Ether or something related to it is an important ingredient in most wasp and hornet killer knockdown products. You've got a watch out, because if only ether gets on them, they will wake up in some cases. Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed...
I think the times this happened to me were when I forgot to shake the can before shooting.
Bear in mind that if they have gotten into a house where the foundation meets the lap siding, as they did here this summer, their nest could be as much as 30 to 50 feet away from the opening to the outside, per what I have read.
I caulked and caulked and sprayed and sprayed, shot dust up into the siding, etc. For the longest time they kept finding a new way to get in and out. It took almost 2 weeks to completely get rid of them ( I hope I'm right).
I worry about what was left behind, because it looks like it must've been a big nest based on the numbers I saw outside. Apparently scavengers like ants love to feast on the remains. For all I know they could be in our stud wall section based on where the opening was. I have noticed more ants in that vicinity, inside in our kitchen recently.
I had a big old busted half log laying by the firewood pile one time. I went to move it fell off the end of the forks. and the Yellow Jackets were not happy. I hurried up and got out of there. The Chickens were very happy. Obviously Yellow Jackets don't bother chickens.
Some of you may be familiar with it but for the benefit of newcomers to the ground wasp problem, here's a nonintuitive solution:
Identify where the nest opening is (yes, usually there is only one)
Obtain a clear glass bowl around 9 to 12 inches in diameter or so
Come back at dusk or after, to that opening that you bravely marked during the day
Spray some water around the opening, not too much because you don't want to wake them up
Put a ring of lime or cement powder, anything powdered that you can use to create a seal, around the opening, such that you can plop the bowl down over it and have a reasonable seal; wet it a little bit if necessary
Plop the bowl down over the opening, and into the lime seal that you created, doing your best to seal it against the lime/ground
The not so smart bees will come out the next morning and fly against the glass relentlessly until they die of dehydration and starvation. For reasons known only to insect science, they will not create a new opening. I guess it is because they die before they figure out that they're not gonna be able to get through the glass.
Perhaps they share some genes with the common skunk, that will stand his or her ground in the middle of the road and wait for a car to hit it because it cannot believe anything would dare mess with it. For lots of laughs on that subject, go to the public television website and seek out the NOVA program called "Is that skunk?", it may still be available.
Take note it does not work to simply block the hole opaquely as I did on my siding problem. Apparently if they can't see out, they do go create another way in and out.
Quote from: WH_Conley on July 25, 2017, 01:01:51 PM
...The Chickens were very happy. Obviously Yellow Jackets don't bother chickens.
Must be the feathers, or/and chickens are really quick as you might have observed. I wonder if guinea fowl will eat them, too, since we want to get a couple for their tick eating proclivity. They make a good farm doorbell as well.
After dark I will pour a cup of gas in the hole and lay a board on top. The fumes will take care of them.
Quote from: Magicman on July 25, 2017, 01:24:07 PM
After dark I will pour a cup of gas in the hole and lay a board on top. The fumes will take care of them.
That's definitely the easiest solution.
But, and please don't brand me as a tree hugger, if you've got a well anywhere near there, consider that a really small amount of petroleum product will contaminate a LOT of ground water over time.
Plus, lime etc is a whole lot cheaper than gas 💰😇
Maybe we could consider lime as "white gas" instead of "straight gas"...
Quote from: newoodguy78 on July 24, 2017, 10:39:45 PM
Quote from: YellowHammer on July 24, 2017, 10:23:21 PM
I have also used Anchorseal, in a sprayer....it just kind of glues them up....and they won't end check anymore.
Was this one of those desperate times call for desperate measures type of moments? :D :D
More than once. There's not a bug flying that can take a load of white gooey waxy Anchorseal full in the face.
Delta dust works well. The most effective I've used is a three bottom plow, and a tractor in high gear going away...That was fun.
In the fall, I bait my carpenter bee traps with a little meat, and the yellow jackets will go in and die. So will the wasps.
Quote from: WH_Conley on July 25, 2017, 01:01:51 PM
I had a big old busted half log laying by the firewood pile one time. I went to move it fell off the end of the forks. and the Yellow Jackets were not happy. I hurried up and got out of there. The Chickens were very happy. Obviously Yellow Jackets don't bother chickens.
Reminds me of the time right after I got my little Gravely tractor with a 30" bushhog on the front. I was cutting multiflora roses in the pasture on the hillside and ran the mower up into a nest of yellowjackets and ticked them off. One stung me and I slammed the tractor into reverse and backed out of there as quick as possible. Just my luck - I backed into a little walnut and it had a big hornet nest on the first limb about 6' high and several of them came out and stung me. I figured with my luck the next thing to happen would be I would turn over and get pinned in a nest of copperheads. Just one of those days.
On the News last night was a report of unusually high numbers of yellow jackets. We normally get a lot at the end of summer and are called Meat Bees as they attack/bite any meat (including people). I guess they are building up supplies for winter. Anyhow, they think it is because of our unusual wet winter (normal but after 4 years of drought) and a hotter early summer (100-109 for a few weeks already) they have peaked early. I've noticed that they are huge this year. They all look like queens.
They sent a team down to an area south of Sacramento to do a report. A person with a fair amount of land (IIRC 1 or 2 acres) had 90 (ninety!) in-ground nests! They were poisoning them and then did a demo - they placed a big plexiglass box over the hole and banged it. A big swarm was buzzing about in the box.
I always heared if you hold your breath they wont sting you. but i never been able to think of it in time.
Turkeys just love bees. When working in the Christmas trees and when we came to a nest
we would just mow around it and the next day the turkeys would find them and clean house.
You would laugh to watch them eating. Every so often one would get stung and jump 3-4
feet in the air.
Or you could entice one of our Texas members to send you an armadillo or two. Their armored hide is impervious to stings, and they will dig out the nest and eat the grubs...
Quote from: dustyhat on July 25, 2017, 07:09:25 PM
I always heared if you hold your breath they wont sting you. but i never been able to think of it in time.
I'd like to see if that works but I don't want to be the first one to try it. Plus I can't run and curse while holding my breath.
I haven't had any trouble getting rid of a nest. I'd like to find a better way to locate a nest that doesn't involve getting stung though.
You could always just dig them out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NxOYkw2z54
QuoteYou could always just dig them out...
Only recommended if you have a space suit on. :D
As for finding the nest, I usually just go with the "watch quietly" method. Sit for a couple of minutes and watch where the wasps are going to and from. The German wasps shown in the video are nasty if you disturb them like that, but if you are just standing there 3 ft from the nest, they just ignore you and fly past.
Once you have it's location, come back after dark with a can of gas and sack. Pour the gas in the hole and stick the sack over the top to keep the fumes in.
We did have a nest of them get into the ceiling a couple of years back. Not a good location for petrol bombing. Lara woke up in the morning with dozens of wasps buzzing her bedroom. Bug bombed her room, and set up a bait station under their exit hole on the outside wall.(again, just watch quietly and you can spot it). Took a couple of days, but we got them all.
I only have one question about the video. Why? ??? ??? ???
Brake Kleen. It will kill everything in its path ;) I used it a few days ago on a nest in my machine.
Also they say if in-ground nest use LP gas as it is heaver than air and will go down the hole and kill overnite. Have not tried this as well but seems to make logic just some more info good or bad????
W.C.W.
if you insist on using something like that, why not use CO2. It won't explode, and it still displaces oxygen and air, killing everything it envelops. And my recollection is it is pretty heavy. Please consider my less dangerous clear bowl method with sealing lime.
The biggest yellow jacket nest I ever dealt with was one that had grown monstrous under the concrete slab of the floor of the barn where I ran my mill, day after day. They had gotten used to the sound and vibration of the machiney, and I never knew they were there until I laid one of my band wheel covers on top of the hole by chance, and they came boiling out by the hundreds, thousands, millions, gazillions :o or so it seemed. Do to the location of the nest under the concrete, and the time of day, I couldn't get to them without coming under severe attack. I tried everything to get close to the nest hole, including bug bombs, fire extinguishers, wasp spray, soapy water in a pump sprayer, everything. It's hard to describe how many were flying around the entrance the nest after I had thoroughly aggravated them, but it looked to be an impenetrable, solid swarm of yellowjackets the size of a beach ball of flying death. I had to completely shut our operation down, as these guys were mad. So after trying everything at hand, can after can of commercial spray, I realized I needed much more firepower, lots more. I loaded a pump up sprayer with a mix of diesel and gasoline, yes it was stupid, and pumped it up to max pressure. Then, from about twenty feet away, I sprayed into the beach ball of yellow jackets, and they started falling like rain. My buddies provided defensive fire, with more cans of spray, and yes, a sprayer of Anchorseal, to protect me from Kamaikazi attack. More came out of the nest, and I just kept the trigger down, and kept spraying into the flying swarm. The more I sprayed, the madder they got, and the more came out of the hole. It was incredible, and I emptied the entire sprayer, a couple gallons, until I was finally able to work my way up to the tunnel under the concrete and jam the nozzle into the hole and lock the trigger on and finally flooded them out.
When the battle was over, the ground in a wide circle was covered with a layer of dead yellowjackets, untold numbers, looking like yellow and black peas on the dirt.
Unfortunately, we weren't able to saw again that day, as the foragers kept coming back to the nest. So we took a break, shut things down, and made sure everybody knew this was a no smoking zone, until the fumes died down.
Looking back, I got real lucky, but DanG, it was fun. 8)
I use to keep a small can if pressured gas in the green house just for wasps.
Gas seem to work as good as anything and it's now any more flammable than
some of the wasp spray that you buy. But it sure is cheaper.
Quote from: loganworks2 on July 24, 2017, 08:58:02 PM
I vote for using a permethrin spray. It will not only kill them it will drive any other wasp away. They hate the smell of it. I had a nest of yellow jackets in my sailboat a few years ago opened the hatch gave a 10 second spray they were dead the next day. I have not seen a wasp around the boat scince.
+1 Permethrin is pretty good stuff. Not too toxic to humans (the army used to treat soldiers' clothes with it, and so do I) but it kills bugs fast. I have a shirt I treated with it, and if a mosquito lands on the shirt, it drops dead on contact. Also good as a "between the shoulderblades" flea and tick treatment for dogs.
Holy cow, Yellowhammer, now I know where you got that name!
Quote from: WH_Conley on July 26, 2017, 09:11:28 AM
I only have one question about the video. Why? ??? ??? ???
Yellowhammer porn! :D
I like how the video calls them "German wasps."
In Germany, they call cockroaches "French roaches." In France, they call cockroaches "German roaches."
New Zealanders must not like Germans much!
If an Australian were making that video, he would have been drunk and naked! "Ouch, those little nippers
smart!" :D
Quote from: YellowHammer on July 26, 2017, 11:31:18 PM
The biggest yellow jacket nest I ever dealt with was one that had grown monstrous und
Looking back, I got real lucky, but DanG, it was fun. 8)
I'm sure those poor creatures were ag[h]ast at what you did. But, no pictures?
First Charles Martel the-- and now Yellow – hammer. We need Moor of them for what's bugging us?
No, no pictures, or video. I never film something when I might get massacred. :D
Now, it did cross my mind that if I hadn't been so close to a building, I might have improvised a sure nuff flame thrower. 8) That would have been cool!
I've got more at our farm, but I just eliminated one in the yard next to our restaurant:
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/45728/IMG_0028.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1501216001)
The hole was big enough for a small snake, so it was easy to spot. I put some dust containing permethrin into the hole after dark, dumped a handful of lime around the opening & then pressed a 2 oz plastic cup over the hole. Quickly, after watching Ian's video & hearing your angry beach ball tale.
No activity as of 24 hours later. Gone gone gone gone gone.
8)
Used the gas trick on a ground nest several years ago.
To my amazement 2 days later a skunk or other critter had dug the nest out.
Given the normal diet of these bees, rotting stuff, I wonder if the rise of home composting, in the US at least, is causing an upsurge in the population of these nasty little scavengers.
I believe the ones I have experience are a different critter, bumble bees, Cause us a lot of grief in hay fields. There are more of them on real wet years when there are more flowering plants growing. Never seen any in fields that were sprayed with a herbicide to kill weeds.
Them things land hard.
PC
Our restaurant building it is an all wood log cabin, circa 1928 on. Bumblebees/Carpenter bees are definitely a nemesis--I have to plug up the holes with caulk after poisoning them, but I don't think I've ever been stung by one here or at the farm.
My wife was stung by a cicada killer/bell hornet (I think the terminology for them varies by region) a while back, while pulling on vines. They are not reputed to be easily angered, but are not nice creatures when they are. I have mainly seen them in hollow trees. The ones I've seen are the size of F-16s.
Bumble bees are pretty gentle. I don't think they can sting or it's really hard to make one mad enough to sting. There are some small black hornets that tend to nest in the ground that are fierce though. They sting and sting hard. I think the worst of the lot is the japanese hornet. Big, yellow, mean, potent. They go looking for a fight. They will wipe out a hive of honey bees whenever they get the chance.
There's some useful and interesting info in this thread. It's good to see how other people are dealing with yellow jackets. I can always use more tools for wiping out a nest. Different methods work better in different situations.
Usually I find a yellow jacket nest by stepping in it or weed eating it before I know it's there. Not good. I'd try holding my breath, but I just don't have much confidence in that. I have heard that they swarm to C02 or CO. Maybe that's where that came from. I dropped a running FS90 one time near a nest and they attacked it relentlessly. I still don't know if I could remember to hold my breath after I get stung 6 or 8 times. I hope someone will try that and report back.
dupl--del
I think we're talking about the same beast, the Japanese hornet. Big, they look like giant yellow jackets in their markings. Bell hornet is a common term around here; cicada killer is the name I got from the Audubon book of insects.
The one that stung my wife went straight at her forehead, and she said it felt something like getting hit by a bird; then came the pain of the sting.
CO2 is used as a lure in fancy mosquito traps, so it may be a common attractant for a lot of different insects. Or maybe it was the carbon monoxide in your chainsaw exhaust? Dumb bees.
I certainly agree with the main concern being the surprise aspect. If we're lucky enough to see where the nest is, we can avoid it and kill them, but if we get surprised, ouch. Too bad they don't have a rattle....
That all sounds right. Especially the part about flying straight at her head.
Just to clarify in my own mind I looked up some of these beasts:
Bell or European Hornet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_hornet
Japanese Hornet:
https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-giant-hornets/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_giant_hornet
Cicada Killer: http://www.cicadamania.com/cicadas/10-facts-about-cicada-killer-wasps/
Useful: http://www.insectidentification.org/bees-ants-wasps-and-similar.asp
Useful but a bit TMI: http://bugguide.net/node/view/59
I'm probably going to have bad dreams tonight after looking at all this. :(
I am still having bad dreams from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VklTs-Tid_I
Could have Poston!
PC
That's an amazing piece of film. I guess stepping in a yellow jacket nest isn't so bad after all. It was interesting how the mother goat (I guess) ran the eagle away. It must be a regular occurrence. Someone made plans to go out and film that with serious equipment and lenses.
Thanks for posting that. I guess. It could be a rough night tonight. I'll probably have to stay up late and watch a zombie film to clear my mind.
Quote from: btulloh on July 29, 2017, 10:39:17 AM
Bumble bees are pretty gentle. I don't think they can sting or it's really hard to make one mad enough to sting. There are some small black hornets that tend to nest in the ground that are fierce though. They sting and sting hard. I think the worst of the lot is the japanese hornet. Big, yellow, mean, potent. They go looking for a fight. They will wipe out a hive of honey bees whenever they get the chance.
There's some useful and interesting info in this thread. It's good to see how other people are dealing with yellow jackets. I can always use more tools for wiping out a nest. Different methods work better in different situations.
Usually I find a yellow jacket nest by stepping in it or weed eating it before I know it's there. Not good. I'd try holding my breath, but I just don't have much confidence in that. I have heard that they swarm to C02 or CO. Maybe that's where that came from. I dropped a running FS90 one time near a nest and they attacked it relentlessly. I still don't know if I could remember to hold my breath after I get stung 6 or 8 times. I hope someone will try that and report back.
The Bumble bees we have here in Pa. can sting. If you mess with there nest they will chase
you for miles and wont let up.
Bumble bee confusion. They get all lumped together, but there 2 different bees. Genuine bumble bees nest in a hole in the ground, can and will sting, and are quite aggressive. And yes, they can outrun a john deere tractor. The look-alike is a carpenter bee, they drill holes in your wood structures, don't sting, and quite docile. As kids, we used to catch them and attach a thread. Easy to tell them apart. Carpenter bees have a white spot on their head, bumble bees head is all black...Folklore around here says if you remain perfectly still. bees, wasps, yellowjackets, etc won't attack. Never had guts enough to try it, ::)
Add KY bumblebees to Kbeitz's PA and pineywoods' LA bees -- they will get you if you mess with them. They're not stupid like the European hornets that moved in here a couple of decades ago. You can take multiple swings at those things with whatever makeshift bat you can grab. Try that with a bumblebee and they'll track the swing of the bat and go after *you*.
I had a head-on collision with one while running into an open equipment shed to get out of a sudden thunderstorm. In the time it took for it to bounce off my forehead, it stung me right between the eyes. Got a baking soda and water paste on it quickly, so it didn't hurt bad, but it still swelled up and made me look goofy for a while. They will blame you for accidents.
Bumblebees here don't always nest in the ground. Anyone who has ever housed tobacco can tell you they will happily make a nest in a stack of lumber or whatever else has been left undisturbed since the previous season. Having to vacate the top tier pole through a nearly full tobacco barn with angry bees after you will test your agility and ability to roll with a high jump.
IMHO, bees of any kind can prove that an old phart can still run! ;D
Don't ask me how I know! ::)
Quote from: pineywoods on July 29, 2017, 08:58:26 PM
And yes, they can outrun a john deere tractor.
They can catch up to a Ford tractor, too. :D :D
Quote from: Chuck White on July 29, 2017, 09:49:41 PM
IMHO, bees of any kind can prove that an old phart can still run! ;D
:D :D :D :D :D
So true
Yellow jackets don't always nest in the ground, either. I have a cedar tree whose small numerous branches grow vertically trapping the foliage as it falls. Over the years it has accumulated so much it has started to decay fooling the yellow jackets into thinking that it is dirt so they built a nest in it one year. I saw them flying in and out 3' above ground. I would post a pic of the tree but the little boogers have selected other dwellings since.
Bob
Them bumble bee's will in fact chase you down,, relentless they are, got hit by one a few years ago just after my first back surgery, while adjusting the pressure switch on my well, that rascal flat out ran me to the house, but not before he nailed me on the back of the neck, and they hurt,,
There's a summer pear tree growing beside the road leading to my house. Early every fall, the yellow jackets get drunk on the rotting fruit. You can walk amongst 'em on the road and they don't even notice. Makes their flight path a bit unpredictable, though. Just dodge and give them time to straighten out.
When working in the Christmas trees and the bees would chase us we would run real
fast in a strati line and grab a Christmas tree and male a sharp turn. The bees would attack
the shaking tree and loose track of the running person. It really worked well.
Quote from: tree-farmer on July 24, 2017, 06:29:42 PM
My cousin had a interesting solution. He would put shop vac hose next to main entrace to nest, about 45 min or so and all the jackets are in the vac canister to be drowned if a wet/dry model, or just corked up to die in a day or two.
Seemed to work. Nest can be dug up once the live jackets are gone.
Fish love em as bait.
Yup. I've done this. Had some nesting inside the brick wall with an entrance right at a window. Apparently the vibration just drives them nuts and then the shop vac sucks em up. Just make sure you aren't exposed when you turn it on. I ended up with some of them dive bombing the window if they managed to sneak out past the suction of the hose. It took a couple attempts to get the majority of them, but it sure worked.
For the ones that are in the ground I locate the hole with a marker and come back after dark. I use a mixture of one gallon water and a small amount of liguid sevin. I'll pour the mixture in the hole and they will be done by morning. Works great and cheap.
I sawed a log the other day that had a hollow spot with a bumble bee nest inside. When the slab fell off it looked like a black cloud. It was early AM and cool so Im guessing thats why i didnt notice any flying around beforehand. I didnt stick around to see if they stung. My dad doused them with canned bee spray kicked the log off the carriage and put it in the weed inventory pile.
I can still recall my Dad saying that back when everyone used a team to do the farm work, plowing, raking, hauling, etc, that if there was a bee problem they would take a small 6-foot sapling, cut most of the limbs off of it and leave the top bushy and attach it on the rear of the farming implement!
The bees would come up out of the ground and they would be all over the top of the sapling!
Probably would make for an exciting ride to be on an old dump rake when the bees are after the team! :o
Years ago I took an old pump up gas torch and sat it in front of a yellow jacket nest hole
I think every bee lost it's wings but was alive cawing around on the ground.
Carb cleaner .....they love it
dancing-jack
I'd just as soon hire this guy to stomp 'em out; he needs long sleeves & a helmet, though, or he'll wind up like this guy
smiley_furious3
Quote from: paul case on July 29, 2017, 02:11:35 PM
I am still having bad dreams from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VklTs-Tid_I
removed due to foul language violation
Bees 1 Crus 0.... The war begins.
I can honestly say that I never thought of holding my breath during the attack. All I could think of was a lot of bad words ow some more bad words and run.
There was a trail of stuff along my escape path.
I really really hate nasty bees!
These are my friends. I would like you all to meet future dead bug 1 :)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/45059/bees4.jpg?easyrotate_cache=1505172112)
trying to upload video of the recently successful demise of a yellow jacket nest, of a lone frustrated survivor, but the system won't take the file. I will research it through the health portion of the site and edit the post.
I have not seen any nest this summer. :)
careful peter you just doomed yourself. I went all summer with nothing then 2 big ones.
Around my area it seems most outdoor folks iv talked to have noticed a lot more yellow jackets then ever remembering. When I'm processing pulp with my Hahn,and set a grapple of fresh cut Aspen on the pile there's swarm's of them. I don't have air conditioning in my cab so the door & windows are open. Every once in awhile a group comes in the cab to check it out. I haven't been bit yet. But two of Son's have in the last two days. I'm wondering if all the extra rain we've gotten this summer has any effect on there numbers. I believe we're 6-7 inches above a average summer.
Quote from: Crusarius on September 11, 2017, 08:12:52 PM
careful peter you just doomed yourself. I went all summer with nothing then 2 big ones.
:D :D :D :D :D smiley_thumbsup
2nd time this year I had to evict them from my LT30 mill frame
That has been a consideration on my build. I don't want any crevices for them to be able to nest in.
Quit pestering those pretty bugs.
Dogs like to snatch yellowjackets out of the air.
This weekend I ran the mill for the first time in a while. I did this with a can of raid. Wasps 0 Sam 14. I saw quite a few yellow jackets around the mill but no next. When I went to dump the grapple load of waste on the brush pile I found the nest. After dumping the load on the pile I could see them swarming around the pile in the sunlight.
Quote from: MbfVA on September 11, 2017, 07:51:04 PM
trying to upload video of the recently successful demise of a yellow jacket nest, of a lone frustrated survivor, but the system won't take the file. I will research it through the health portion of the site and edit the post.
MbfVA,
Videos are not uploaded to the Forestry Forum site. Instead, upload the video to YouTube, then put a link in your post on FF to the YouTube video.
HTH
Herb
My BIL laughed at me when I got in the nest. He got into 2.
I use a spray made for dairy barns that has permethrin in it. It will not only kill the yellow jackets it will also keep them from returning. They hate the smell
the seven I puffed them with yesterday seems to have killed them. I see no signs of any activity tonight.
We were dove hunting the day before yesterday and my wife bent down to pick up a bird. I heard her yell and grab her eyes and I ran over. A yellow jacket had gotten in behind her sunglasses and got trapped. It stung her twice right next to her eye, and the when she whipped her glasses off, she got hit on her thumb.
End of the hunt for her. She pretty much already had her limit already, so she wasn't too upset.
Now is the time to nail them, before the queens hibernate and the workers die anyway. Unfed queen+dead workers = Soon starved queen & no colony next year.
sorry to hear about your wife's run in. Lucky the thing didn't get into her eye itself--I can sense very bad consequences in that case.
these bees are not smart. Here's the results of my latest clear container upside down trick. I also dusted down some Perm. dust The night before.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/45728/IMG_0039.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1505273125)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/45728/IMG_0040.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1505273117)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/45728/IMG_0041.JPG?easyrotate_cache=1505273148)
those guys have definitely lost their buzz.
sure wish the window for these post was sizable, and that Siri was a better dictation vehicle
I read about an interesting way to help control yellow jackets a while back. It said to put out yellow jacket traps early in the spring when the fertilized queens are first emerging from their winter headquarters. April around here usually. The queens have to go forage when they first emerge until the first workers are hatched. The queens will end up in the traps and no colonies form. It makes sense to me.
I put out a few traps last spring and caught 4 or 5 queens. It would probably have been more, but a peculiar weather pattern the previous year seemed to have eliminated a lot of yellow jackets. We had an early spring with a couple late freezes, and I think it killed off a lot of queens. There have been very few yellow jackets around since that happened. Less is good. None is great.
Seems like more out here though, and we're only a few miles from you, BT.
Are you going to the Field Day of the Past show this weekend in Centerville? I know Marty Parsons and his group will be there with the orange stuff.
For those out of our area, this is a big demonstration weekend for old ways/ nostalgia and techniques, and a lot of new ways, too, like saw mills.
yellow jackets are beneficial insects. They feed their young on humans and insects that would
otherwise damage crops and ornamental plants in your garden.
A few days after we got married my MIL up in N. Ala mowed into a nest of them and they got up her pants legs and she just left them in the yard. She was a large lady and I suspect it was a real sight. Of course it was Ala and folks probably just thought she was a UA fan and subject to fits of lunacy. I think it was the old style mower without a safety switch and it kept running till it ran out of gas.
On a more serious note I sawed for a client in Fayetteville WV 2 weeks ago. Their former sheriff was killed and they had a big funeral while I was there. Apparently he was mowing and mowed into a nest and was killed by wasps - I assume they were yellow jackets. We had nest in our log pile we had to contend with but fortunately we never got stung.
I actually had planned on letting them live. Then they attacked me. My plans suddenly changed. Just glad they got me and not my wife or 2 year old.
7 seemed to work great on vanquishing the nest in the wall of my garage.
I do wonder if the yellow jackets I had around kept the less desirable bees from nesting there?
There are plenty of 'summer pears' on the road this year. I might have enough yellow jackets to send some to all of y'all. I'll just tell the UPS man they're battery powered buzzers and I forgot to remove the batteries.
Quote from: MbfVA on September 13, 2017, 09:40:52 AM
Seems like more out here though, and we're only a few miles from you, BT.
Are you going to the Field Day of the Past show this weekend in Centerville? I know Marty Parsons and his group will be there with the orange stuff.
For those out of our area, this is a big demonstration weekend for old ways/ nostalgia and techniques, and a lot of new ways, too, like saw mills.
I really don't know why, but there's been a lot less of them for two years now. Just guessing about the early freeze, otherwise I have no idea why.
I do plan to go to FDOTP this year. It's always a good event. Amazing actually. That thing has really grown and grown. Something for everybody. I'd like to take some good pix and post them on here. It's hard to really capture it with a camera. I need a drone.
Are you going? We should meet up.
Quote from: Kbeitz on September 13, 2017, 09:51:25 AM
yellow jackets are beneficial insects. They feed their young on humans and insects that would
otherwise damage crops and ornamental plants in your garden.
This bunch has already shown themselves to be murderous with chemical and mechanical warfare against bugs. You trying to get them to make the yellow jacket extinct?!?!?
Quote from: Kbeitz on September 13, 2017, 09:51:25 AM
yellow jackets are beneficial insects. They feed their young on humans and insects...
OK I'll bite. Give me some examples of the humans that they're after.
If they have no one in mind, I'll nominate the Little "man" that runs North Korea right now. Down boys down, stay away from US political examples....
One of the 10 Most Dangerous Predators in North America...
http://www.gameandfishmag.com/survival/10-lethal-predators-north-america/
One of our vendors got bitten by a brown recluse spider. His recovery was long and unpleasant. Lyme disease ticks are reputed to be more common as one goes farther to the northeast.
I make a point of bombing our crawlspace each time I need to go into it. seems to nail those pesky tiny ants as well.
If you think those sharks sound bad, you should check out all the weird but very dangerous aquatic & land animals/insects that plague Australia. My sister-in-law and her husband lived there for 2 or 3 years and had to study that list on a regular basis.
They are persistent. Had to evict them a third time from my mill frame this year.
Another vote for Seven. I had a ground nest with two entrance holes. Mixed up a STRONG solution and sprayed 1/2 a gallon in each hole just after dark. Never saw a bee the next day. Score one. Couple days later found a steady stream of bees working into a crack behind the light by the front door. Not a good place. Tried liquid spray solution the first night -- didn't work well. Next night I poofed powdered Seven into and around the opening. Next morning -- no more bees. Score: 2-0
I tried a little bit of everything. I didn't want to use Petroleum products around the mill and sawdust. By the time it was over I wound up putting Diesel in a pump up garden spray and spraying 2 entrance holes. Them closing them. I took an iron bar and jabbed straight down til felt a void and poured gas down it and sealed back up. That finally got the blasted things. I thought I was going to have quit sawing til winter.